OVERFLOWING STREAMS: VREID, THY CATAFALQUE, DEMONICAL, BODYFARM, FUCK THE FACTS, BLODSGARD, SWORN TO OATH, KUBLAI KHAN

 

Yesterday I compiled a massive round-up featuring new songs and/or videos by seven bands. But that still didn’t exhaust what I had found in the preceding days. And, metal being such an explosively metastasizing tumor, I’ve found still more things to get excited about since I wrote yesterday’s compilation. So, what the hell, I’ve decided to throw caution to the winds and prepare another even more jam-packed post, with good things from eight bands. Once again, I’m choking back my tendency to shower many words over the music… I’ll just scatter a few droplets instead.

VREID

I’m going to start by telling you about a full-album stream that came rushing up like a freight train at night with the lights off. Which is a way of saying that although we here at NCS are enormous fans of Vreid, we received no advance copy of their new album Sólverv, and just learned that all the songs have now been officially uploaded to YouTube for streaming.

So, perhaps needless to say, I haven’t heard the album yet, merely the first single, which I wrote about shortly after it came out. We can all listen to it together… the YouTube clip below is part of a list, and all the songs should load one after the other. Or, you can go HERE and pick and choose.

To pre-order the album from Indie Recordings, go HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/vreidofficial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THY CATAFALQUE

Now we’ll turn to something completely different: Yesterday Metal Sucks premiered another new song from Sgùrr, the phenomenal new album by Thy Catafalque. I’ve already reviewed the album here (in a post that also includes the premiere of another song from the album), and I also encourage you to check out our interview of the band’s Tamás Kátai (here).

The song you can hear at Metal Sucks is “Oldódó formák a halál titokzatos birodalmában”, one of the album’s two long songs. It’s worth every minute you give it. I’ll crib from my review:

“Oldódó formák a halál titokzatos birodalmában”, unites heavy, grinding riffs and attention-grabbing guitar solos; hard-driving drum rhythms; harsh vocals (provided in part by Katái’s former bandmate Zoltán Kónya in the band Gire); electronic music (including quasi-industrial beats and an ethereal keyboard melody); and passages from a Hungarian Wikipedia article about water, narrated again by Viktória Varga over strange ambient sounds as a backdrop. The last five minutes of the song are ridiculously catchy, melding a ghostly keyboard melody, a haze of guitar distortion, flickering electronic sounds, and a compulsive drum rhythm.

Listen HERE.

UPDATE: Just as I was putting the finishing touches on this post I learned that the entirety of Sgùrr has today been made available for streaming at Stereogum. I strongly urge you to take advantage of the opportunity to hear it from start to finish, which is how it was meant to be heard. Do that at this location.

Sgùrr will be released by Season of Mist on October 16 and is available for pre-order HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/thycatafalque

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEMONICAL

The next item in this collection is an official video for Demonical’s “To Become the Weapon”, a track taken from their 2015 EP Black Flesh Redemption (released by Agonia Records). The video sets the music to a live performance of the band.

I’ve said before that Demonical are one of my favorite current practitioners of old-school, Stockholm-style death metal — which happens to be one of my favorite styles of extreme music. They hit with the power of a tank attack and the merciless ferocity of a wolf pack — and that power comes through loud and clear in this video.

I’m including a Bandcamp stream of the whole EP right after this new video, but be forewarned: It will eat you alive.

http://www.demonical.net
http://www.demonicalmerch.net
https://www.facebook.com/Demonicalofficial/

https://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com/album/black-flesh-redemption
http://www.agoniarecords.com
http://www.facebook.com/agoniarecords

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BODYFARM

Staying with old-school death metal, but this time of the Dutch variety, I’m turning next to a brand new official video for a track called “Storming Revolution”, which is drawn from the forthcoming album Battle Breed by Bodyfarm. Like the Demonical video, this one is based on live performances — shot in the summer of 2015 at Dynamo Metal Fest in The Netherlands and the Carpathian Alliance Festival in Ukraine.

Get ready for some high-energy thrashing death that’s Grade A mosh fuel — and make sure you your neck muscles are nice and loose before you get to the 2:00 mark. The mid-section of this thing hammers so hard you could drive nails with your head.

Battle Breed will be released on November 6 by Cyclone Empire. The great cover artwork was created by Juanjo Castellano. Pre-order via the first link below.

http://www.bodyfarmdeathmetal.com
http://www.facebook.com/bodyfarmdeathmetal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FUCK THE FACTS

The awesome Canadian grind band Fuck the Facts released their latest album Desire Will Rot via Noise Salvation this past August. Yesterday, they debuted a video for a track from the album called “The Path of Most Resistance”.

Apart from the intriguing visuals on display, the song featured in the video is a fascinating combination of grind savagery and eerie atmospherics.

Below the video you’ll find a full stream of the new record via Bandcamp.

https://fuckthefacts.bandcamp.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BLODSGARD

The Norwegian band Blodsgard is one we’ve written about frequently over the years. A few days ago I discovered that a Blodsgard song named “Dommedagsprofeti” had appeared on YouTube. It was recorded in 2009, and so far as I know it has never been officially released. It’s both brutally grim and sweepingly atmospheric, a combination of cold Northern bloodthirstiness and entrancing melody.

If you haven’t yet discovered the wonders of Blodsgard’s 2013 album Monuments, stop wasting time and do that (album stream follows the newly released song below).

https://blodsgard.bandcamp.com/album/monument
http://www.blodsgard.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BlodsgardOfficial/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SWORN TO OATH

Unlike all the other bands featured in this collection so far, Sworn To Oath Stoke is a new name at our site. They’re a trio from the land of Stoke-on-Trent in the UK, and their debut album Pillars was released last year by Transcend Music. A couple of days ago they unveiled a video for a song from the album named “Gave In To God”, which is described by frontman Thomas Shaw as follows:

“Gave In To God is a pretty dark track and it’s based around the story of a man who burnt out his eyes to feel closer to God. It’s going to be our last single from Pillars before we start work on the follow up to our debut.”

It’s a slow-burner that begins slowly and grows more intense. Heavy, ominous, doom-stricken (and an exception to our rule in the vocal department)…. As you know, I don’t listen to music like this very often any more, but something about this one grabbed me.

http://www.sworntooath.com
http://www.facebook.com/sworntooath
http://sworntooathmerch.bigcartel.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KUBLAI KHAN

This final song comes from another new name at our site, a North Texas band named Kublai Khan. The song is “Life For A Life”, and it will appear on the band’s new album New Strength, due for release on November 27. The song caught my eye because it includes a guest vocal appearance by Bury Your Dead’s frontman Mat Bruso.

Mat Bruso played a pivotal role in the naming of this site almost six years ago, though he didn’t know it at the time. His departure from BYD (a big favorite of mine at the time) and his replacement by the clean-singing Myke Terry pissed me off so much that I picked the site’s name in protest over that event.

“Life For A Life” reminds me of old BYD. It hits like a crowbar… or the blunt end of an ax blade.

You can pre-order New Strength here.

https://www.facebook.com/KublaiKhanTexoma